UPSHUR COUNTY - CREMATION


Obituary for Gerald (Jerry) Scott Kates

A memorial service for Gerald S. “Jerry” Kates of Gladewater will be held Friday at 3 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church of Gladewater; Mr. Larry W. Osborne and Reverend Dick Dobbins will officiate. An informal visitation will follow the service.

Mr. Kates died peacefully Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, at his Lake Gladewater home, during a sacred candlelight service with his family at his bedside. He was 81.

Born Nov. 1, 1935, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Harry and Mary Kates, Jerry grew up in Claremore and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman, where he played in the Sooners’ band, and earned his bachelor’s degree in music from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He married his high-school sweetheart and the love of his life, Shirley Sherrell, on Jan. 20, 1957, in Broken Arrow.
Mr. Kates was a third-generation newspaperman, but he was also much more. 

His grandfather, Albert Linwood Kates of New Jersey, bought a Claremore, Oklahoma newspaper sight-unseen in 1893 and traveled halfway across the continent to put out the first edition of the Claremore Progress that July 1. 

In later years, A.L.’s newsroom was a regular stopover for Will Rogers when the Claremore native was home. The family says the Progress was the only newspaper in the country allowed to run Will Rogers’ popular nationwide column at no cost.

Jerry’s father, Harry Kates, worked at the Claremore paper since childhood and took over when A.L. died in 1938. Harry bought the Broken Arrow (Oklahoma) Ledger and published that paper in the 1940s and -’50s before buying the Gladewater Daily Mirror in 1954. 

Jerry also started newspaper work in his childhood, walking downtown streets selling fresh copies hot off the press. “I wasn’t very good at it,” he said later. Jerry went on to launch White Oak’s first newspaper, The Texan, in the late 1960s. 

Jerry became the Mirror’s editor and then publisher, serving until selling the paper to the Westward newspaper chain in 1989.

But even while carrying on the Kates family’s ink-stained traditions, music remained dear to his heart. 
A longtime member of the First United Methodist Church of Gladewater, he served as choir director there for 25 years. He was also a board member, director, and cast member of the Longview Community Dinner Theater in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

Jerry also sang in several barbershop quartets over the years, even directing the entire chorus for the Longview Chapter of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing of America. His family can still snap out that tongue-tying SPEBSQSA abbreviation effortlessly.

He took his role as a community-newspaper publisher seriously, and in the mid-’80s Jerry lent a hand to newcomers Beth and Cecil Bishop in their quest to make Gladewater the “Antiques Capital of East Texas.” The quest seemed quixotic at the time, but through the Bishops’ determination and enthusiasm — promoted with features, coverage, and editorials in the Mirror’s pages — it began to take shape.

The Gladewater Chamber of Commerce recognized his longtime contributions to the city by naming him its Man of the Year in 1994. He received the Chamber’s Bradley Award for outstanding community service twice.
After retiring, Jerry and Shirley jumped into the antiques game themselves, buying the old First State Bank building at Main and Pacific streets and opening Ford Office Supply with an adjoining antiques mall.

Community boosterism and his love of music and theater all came together in 1986 when the Gladewater Chamber of Commerce launched an annual festival to celebrate the city’s unique history as a 1930s boomtown. 

As a contribution to the first Gusher Days weekend, Jerry teamed up with Glen Goza, Molly Abercrombie, and Brenda Kaster to write a musical comedy, “Settin’ on the Woodbine.” (That spelling of settin’ was deliberate, Jerry would point out.) Jerry composed all the music and wrote many of the lyrics. The full-scale production took the efforts of more than 50 cast and crew members and a long, rigorous rehearsal schedule. The show ran during Gusher Days for six years.

After retiring, Jerry, Shirley, and often other family and friends enjoyed road trips in their RV, especially to Colorado in summers and often to visit their daughter, Sissy, in South Dakota. They also remained energetic hosts for all comers at their Lake Gladewater home on holidays, especially the Fourth of July.

His family and friends remember Jerry as a kind, loving Christian man with a huge heart. Very seldom would you find him without a book in his hand or his back pocket, always increasing his knowledge regarding some historical event. And he loved sharing this knowledge.

Mr. Kates (“Brother”) was preceded in death by his parents; a son, Gerald Jack Kates; an infant daughter; a granddaughter, Rebecca Kates; and three sisters and four brothers-in-law, Fredalene (“Woo-Woo”) Clark Ruggles and husbands Neal Clark and Don Ruggles, Mary Jean (“Nee-Nee”) and Jack Elrod, and Harriett (“Lolly”) and Glenn Walton.

Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Shirley Sherrell Kates; two sons and a daughter-in-law, Harry Wesley Kates of Gladewater, Matthew Scott and Teresa Kates of Gladewater; a daughter, Sherrell “Sissy” Anne Schneiderman of Mineola; seven grandchildren, Joel Duraso of Gladewater, Josie Duraso of San Diego, Calif., Jacob Duraso of Tulsa, Okla, Tony Turner of White Oak, Christopher Webb of Gladewater, Jacqueline Smith of White Oak, and Bruce Kates of Gladewater; nine great-grandchildren; two sisters-in-law, Susanne and her husband Bob Cypert of Columbus, Kansas, and Peggy Van Dyke of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; many nieces and nephews; and his dog, Andy. 

The family asks that memorials be directed to First United Methodist Church of Gladewater or Hospice of East Texas (www.hospiceofeasttexas.org).